


Ghost

by Shortculler (Starculler)



Series: Flash Fiction Friday [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Gen, Resurrected Jason Todd, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25730479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starculler/pseuds/Shortculler
Summary: Jason Todd goes into the Lazarus Pit a corpse and comes out something not quite human.
Series: Flash Fiction Friday [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866400
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [FlashFictionFriday](https://flashfictionfridayofficial.tumblr.com/)'s prompt Queer and Curious.
> 
> Originally written for [Tumblr](https://starculler.tumblr.com/post/190957859156/ghost)
> 
> One day I'd love to see this made into a full AU

Jason sneered at the patch of shadows and rags in the corner of his room, unwilling to believe anything he’d been told. He knew aliens and amazons and had seen his fair share of magic tossed around, but this? This was _absurd_. Ridiculous. A fucking farce.

“You do not believe me?”

The shadows slithered forward across the floorboards, sinking into every crack as it stretched into his apartment. Jason drew back a step, and then another. More and more until he hit the back of his couch.

“You do not think it odd?” Its voice filled the air, cold and biting and hollow, echoing and bouncing against the walls until he was desperate to slam his hands over his ears just to make it stop. “Are you not curious?”

“Get out,” Jason growled, refusing to flinch even as the shadows lapped at the toes of his boots.

A willowy, gnarled hand reached out, sickly gray and paper thin skin as cold as ice as it trailed its knobby fingers across his cheek. Long, chipped nails scraped softly through his hair, ghosting across his scalp while its palm settled a hairsbreadth from his ear. His breath hitched and dread coiled in his stomach, twisting it into painful knots.

“Get out,” he repeated, but it was laughable at best. A cracked, wavering, near-whisper that struggled past his lips.

The hand on his face paused, its twisted thumb brushing just under his eye before withdrawing. He a hint of a grin through the writhing mass, barely there among the solid black, and forcefully suppressed a shudder.

“I will return,” it said. Calm and cold and still grinning in a way that left him feeling like something big had clamped its jaws around his throat.

Jason’s lips twisted, baring his teeth in a snarl with little threat, and glared as it receded further and further back until it was once more concentrated in a shallow pool in one corner of the room. He didn’t move, hardly breathing as he watched. Waited. It lingered there, the shape of it almost visible for a scant few seconds but always indefinable － shifting, changing, morphing itself into shadowy shapes just this side of nightmarish, clinging to the edge of normal by a thread. And then, in a blink, it was gone.

He sucked in air like a drowning man, one huge, gulping gasp that left him coughing and choking, doubled over with one hand on the back of his ratty couch for support. As warmth returned to his apartment and his fit abated, he slumped to his knees, hardly wincing as he hit the hardwood hard. He leaned back against the couch, determinedly ignoring the way his body shook.

“What the fuck.” His voice was small and strangled, filled to bursting with disbelief and desperation. “What the _fuck_ ,” he repeated, so low that the silence drowned it.

_You are one of us, Jason Todd._

He shut his eyes and pressed the palms of his trembling hands up against his ears, jaw clenched painfully tight. His head throbbed in time with the words. In time with the ghost of a corpse-like hand on his face, stroking through his hair. In time with the roiling waves of nausea pouring over him.

_You are not human._

Bile crept up his throat and burned in chest as he pressed harder against his ears. He tried to will that thing, the remnants of its voice in his head, to shut up. Shut up. Shut up shut up shutupshutupshutup, but it remained. Echoing and twisting in his skull, stubborn as the bloodstains on his clothes.

_You are shadows_

Sweat beaded on his brow, his skin flushed warm and clammy all at once. His chest felt tight. Constricted. Stuffed. Like there wasn’t enough space inside of him for his lungs to fill. Like he was all of ten years old with a fever in a too-cold, crummy apartment with no meds and limbs made of lead, too heavy to move on his own.

_And death_

His skin prickled, crawling and tingling along the now-invisible mess of burns he would have had if the Pit hadn’t wiped him clean with its waters. He pressed harder at his ears, digging fingers into flesh like it was a dirt-logged coffin six feet under and he was starved for air.

_And everlasting_


End file.
